Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Chock Full of Nuts

It seems like everything I read these days has some kind of lesson about taking time to enjoy the little things and having an appreciation for the beauty that is put before us every day. I will admit I have a habit of racing from one task to the next without enjoying the journey. I’m trying to do better. Lately, I have made a real effort to enjoy the sunsets I see each night when I’m running. Why, I even counted the chips in that big cookie I ate this afternoon. It’s not easy for me. I’m a diehard multi-tasker. However, as my friend Randall says, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then.

On the weekdays Teen Angel works until closing time at the bakery downtown, I have about thirty minutes to fill between the time I get off work and the time I need to pick her up. My job is literally about a minute and a half from the bakery, so it’s a short drive. It’s a great time to take a few pictures but not a long time, so I usually end up scouring the same two block area around the bakery for photos. I’ve been doing this for weeks, so it has become a challenge to find new stuff to photograph there. However, just about the time I think I’ve picked that area clean, I stumble onto something else. This exercise forces me to explore details and things that seem average but really aren’t. It also teaches me to see with new eyes things I’ve been looking at and looking over for years. I’m discovering that beauty and art are everywhere. It’s certainly in nature and in architecture, and occasionally it’s deliberately placed there by the skilled hands of someone who had a vision, waiting for someone like me to stumble into it.

Yesterday, I tripped over this:

Handmade tiles which cover the front of a restaurant that closed a few years ago. I’m not sure what the artist’s inspiration was, but I like the results. I’ve walked by this building dozens of times, but yesterday was the first time I really NOTICED it. Hundreds of colorful tiles, each one a little different and each one a burst of rainbow. Each one beckoning me to marvel at their color and to enjoy the journey I called Tuesday. Acorn anyone?

They really are beautiful. I ventured downtown before I came to work this morning, riverfront and onto Ky ave. I noticed they are doing work on the corner brick (2nd going toward Ky). I wonder what that is going to be.